STIGUI
V-216351CAT II — Medium severitySV-216351r959010_rule

X11 forwarding for SSH must be disabled.

Rule version SOL-11.1-040330 · STIG v3 · 2026-08-19

Discussion

As enabling X11 Forwarding on the host can permit a malicious user to secretly open another X11 connection to another remote client during the session and perform unobtrusive activities such as keystroke monitoring, if the X11 services are not required for the system's intended function, they should be disabled or restricted as appropriate to the user's needs.

Check

Determine if X11 Forwarding is enabled.

# grep "^X11Forwarding" /etc/ssh/sshd_config

If the output of this command is not:

X11Forwarding no

this is a finding.

Fix

The root role is required.

Modify the sshd_config file.

# pfedit /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Locate the line containing:

X11Forwarding

Change it to:

X11Forwarding no

Restart the SSH service.

# svcadm restart svc:/network/ssh

Identifiers

Group ID
V-216351
Group title
SRG-OS-000480
Rule ID
SV-216351r959010_rule
Check ID
C-17587r371141_chk
Fix ID
F-17585r371142_fix